Author: Linda Curtis

We know you love us, we know it’s true, but do you love us enough to pay your membership dues?

Nat Love, a typical cowboy in 1907, is a reminder that we need an open range where the ideological and party fences that divide us are taken down so the cowboys and cowgirls, from all heritages, can work together. Join LIV now, partners!

Rather than shoot from the hip on the special session, we provide for you the opinioin of Harvey Kronberg from the Quorum Report. We respect Kronberg and view him as the best analyst of Texas politics.

*Austin’s hotel occupancy tax (HOT) is estimated to bring in $92 million this year and likely to cross the $100 million mark next year. State law requires the HOT tax be used to benefit and promote tourism to the Austin area. *The HOT tax is skyrocketing because tourists are flocking to Austin for live music; arts and cultural festivals; unique Austin restaurants, businesses, and cultural facilities; UT sports; Barton Springs, the Highland Lakes, and Lady Bird Lake; the State Capitol;[…]

The Texas Railroad Commission is perhaps the most important, and yet least transparent, agency in Texas government. Its dishonest and misleading name has nothing to do with its actual duties (which is to regulate the state’s ever so important oil and gas industry). And even though at least one Commissioner seat is on the ballot every two years, fewer than 5% of Texas voters are aware of its duties.

As we wrap up another round of the Texas Legislature, I can’t help but think of another lost opportunity. This session began with great optimism, as they always do, but in the end, the same old question arises; why did I bother? Why do I continue to let myself be optimistic, only to be disappointed session after session? Maybe the disappointment will wear off by the time the 86th Legislature rolls around, but right now, eminent domain reform seems hopeless.

This Texas Tribune article “Where $507 Milliion in Texas Enterprise Funds Went” received only two comments. Is it because we feel hopeless that anything can be done about the state of capitalism we call “crony capitalism”?

North Lee County landowners are speaking out on another commercial-size permit in north Lee County and have requested help from SAWDF to address their concerns. That area is also the site of the Forestar (USA) Real Estate Group’s commercial wells (recently purchased by Archway Water LLC), and is near End-Op/Recharge Texas’ proposed seven wells in Blue and the massive 33-well Vista Ridge Project in Burleson County.

To be honest with you, we know it is near impossible to defeat bills once they’ve gone through conference committees. These are “agreed upon” supposedly by both houses, but we know for sure, this is a very flawed process that comes from on high.